Our Beloved Parents

 

As the Chinese New Year draws nearer, many of us are preparing to be reunited with our families of origin. Our Asian culture and our religions teach us to be filial to our parents. If truth be told, how many visit their parents out of obligation and duty? How many children visit their parents because they really want to see them? And how many people feel that it does not matter either way?

The parental-child relationship can be a complicated one. Do most people have good relationships with their parents? Because we did not choose our parents, there is a possibility that we may not even like them. There is an increasing number of parents being abandoned at old folks homes or hospitals when they fall sick and are too burdensome to care for anymore. Is poor parental-child relations the reason for the estrangement of parents from their adult children? I have also heard that some parents can be terribly difficult and manipulative. Do they then deserve abandonment?

Does this post, so near the Chinese New Year make people feel uncomfortable?  Indeed, it is to me, very sad to see estranged relationships. Parents, adult children or siblings who do not speak to each other anymore. What goes through the minds of these parents at this time of the year? If their minds are still alert, how would they feel, knowing that the children they once brought up, now have no place in their lives for them?

As a parent, after all that sweat, worry and toil invested, it is a tough blow to be abandoned,  physically or emotionally, or both, by one's children, especially at a time when one is at one's most vulnerable and weakest.  Though it is increasingly acceptable to outsource the care of aged parents to outsiders due to our busy lifestyle and work commitments,  it is still a subject that weighs heavy on my mind.  "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." I believe not one person wants to spend the last years of their lives, in an old folks home, whatever the reasons may be.

The general thought these days is that we should not have expectations of our children to avoid disappointment. That we should save up and be independent of them. Can we really? Emotions, once invested always leaves us feeling vulnerable. We can prepare ourselves by changing our mindset but we can never be totally immune from disappointment, as parents.